Every vicious habit and chronic disease communicates itself by descent, and by purity of birth the entire system of the human body and soul may be gradually elevated, or by recklessness of birth degraded, until there shall be as much difference between the well-bred and ill-bred human creature (whatever pains be taken with their education) as between a wolf-hound and the vilest mongrel cur. Ruskin.

Everywhere in life the true question is, not what we gain, but what we do; so also in intellectual matters it is not what we receive, but what we are made to give, that chiefly contents and profits us. Carlyle.

Evil, what we call evil, must ever exist while man exists; evil, in the widest sense we can give it, is precisely the dark, disordered material out of which mans freewill has to create an edifice of order and good. Ever must pain urge us to labour; and only in free effort can any blessedness be imagined for us. Carlyle.

Extremes, though contrary, have the like effects; extreme heat mortifies, like extreme cold; extreme love breeds satiety as well as extreme hatred; and too violent rigour tempts chastity as much as too much license. Chapman.

Eyes speak all languages; wait for no letter of introduction; they ask no leave of age or rank; they respect neither poverty nor riches, neither learning, nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but intrude and come again, and go through and through you in a moment of time. Emerson.